Vegetational study of the Man'yoshu

Abstract

The Man'yoshu, which was edited in the eighth century, is an excellent anthology of old Japanese poems about harmonious co-existence between nature and mankind. Based on the names and descriptions of plants, plant communities and environmental conditions written in the Man'yoshu, we could deduce the vegetational land-scape in the Asuka and Nara periods. The number of plants and plant communities described in the Man'yoshu include 145 species and 19 communities, respectively. The combination of two or more plant species in a single poem was considered a part of the species composition of an actual plant community. The combination of plant species and environmental conditions in a poem was considered to correspond to the actual relationship between plant species and environmental conditions. These interpretations confirmed that poems of the Man'yoshu were written realistically in expression of nature and mankind. At Sato (mostly cultivated and developed open areas) and Yama (mountains near a village), the vegetational landscapes in the Asuka and Nara periods were similar to these in recent years. Contrarily, at Okuyama (mountains far from a residential area) the vegetational landscape in the Asuka and Nara periods, composed of natural lucidophyllous-coniferous mixed forests, was different from that in the present day, which is composed of secondary and artificial forests.